The Other Portal
by Haberdashing
Summary: AU where, when items are lost in the Bottomless Pit, they come to Ford... regardless of his current location in the multiverse.


It was snowing.

To be more precise, it was snowing _inside_ the cave where Ford was currently residing.

To be most precise, it was snowing in a circle roughly a dozen feet in diameter, with Ford at the circle's center. The flurry followed him around, shifting to match Ford's every step, leaving damp ground and confusion in his wake.

Oddities related to the laws of physics were par for the course in the Nightmare Realm, true, but this one seemed unique to Ford, unusual enough that none he encountered could (or would) offer an explanation. The inexplicable snowfall eased up after several hours, thick showers turning to a light dusting of flakes before fading away entirely, but it lingered in his thoughts for some time afterwards. He hadn't seen anomalous weather elsewhere in the Nightmare Realm- hadn't seen _any_ weather, truth be told, only calm, featureless swaths of space. So why there? Why him?

The question faded from his mind over time as his journey continued, as he jumped into the nearest wormhole to escape the Nightmare Realm for dimensions unknown. But it returned with a vengeance when, while laying down in a makeshift shelter, having finally managed to drift off, he was abruptly hit in the face with a thick clump of snow and a shower of pine needles.

(By the time he managed to return to sleep, the snow was long melted, but the pine needles remained, a sign that the bizarre occurrence was more than a mere dream.)

Another self-contained snowstorm hit Ford not long after- a few days, it seemed, but Ford hadn't kept track, had only the vaguest sense of how time passed by, of sunrises and sunsets endlessly repeating. It ended in time, only to be replaced with another. The flurries soon seemed as inevitable as the rising and setting of the sun (or suns, in some cases) until, after (weeks? months? years?) some length of time, rain fell instead of snow, cold water and sharp pine needles pummeling Ford all at once.

Snow, rain, pine needles, and the occasional clump of dirt and grass all fell onto or around Ford at any given moment. He couldn't control it. He couldn't prevent it. All Ford could do was accept it.

Sometimes it was helpful.

(Ford was tied tightly to a stake, surrounded by dozens of blue humanoid beings twice his size, one of which held a torch filled with green fire just far enough away that the downpour surrounding Ford could not extinguish the flames.

As it turns out, not everyone was entirely willing to accept the reality of dimensional travel. Some of the natives of Dimension 331/D, having seen Ford enter through a convenient wormhole, had in fact proven themselves exceptionally unhappy with the concept, and wanted to take out their anger on him. Others supported Ford, or at least supported his right to continue living, but that group was smaller and consistently out-shouted by those calling for his execution.

But if they were going to burn him, they were going to have to wait out the storm.

The rain had started shortly after his arrival in this dimension, and by the time the natives had subdued him he was drenched, as were the few others who had dared to approach him. The dual suns of this planet dried the others, but Ford only grew wetter as the storm surrounding him and him alone raged on.

It was only a matter of time, though. The rain always ended. Whether it took minutes or hours or days mattered little if he couldn't convince the people of this dimension to let him go, and as time went on, more and more of the crowd turned against him...

But then a thick tree branch, as long as Ford was tall, fell from the sky with the raindrops, tumbling through the air before smashing into the torch, instantly putting out the flames and spreading splinters of damp wood across the muddy ground.

They let him go after that.

The natives of Dimension 331/D called it "a sign". Ford called it the universe giving him a break for once.)

Sometimes it was... less than helpful.

(The plan was simple. Ford had already sneaked into the facility and followed the coronium cube as it was moved into a less-secure side chamber. All he had to do was wait as the guards did their rounds until none were left in the room, leaving the coronium open for the taking, and then he'd be one step closer to finally completing his quantum destabilizer.

And he'd already found a decent spot to watch the area without being noticed. The supply closet where Ford currently stood was directly across the room from the cube's current location, with three slits at eye level letting him monitor its current status. The closet was nearly empty, leaving him plenty of breathing room and decreasing the odds that anybody would bump into him while searching for supplies. Once the guards left, he would be ready to strike.

Suddenly, a white blob appeared in Ford's field of vision.

Ford blinked, and it disappeared, but soon another took its place. Something white was - Ford rubbed his eyes, and the second one disappeared- catching on his eyelashes, falling from somewhere. Dandruff, perhaps? Or had a container broken open, spilling some sort of alien chemical onto him?

Ford carefully tilted his head upwards, attempting to ascertain whether he was being assaulted by chemicals from above, and felt something cold and wet brush against his forehead.

Not dandruff, then. Not alien chemicals, either.

Ford's heartbeat quickened as he realized the true source of the cold and the white, realized the implications. The supply closet was big, but not big enough. If snowflakes were landing on him, snow would be falling on the other side of the door as well.

How long until the guards noticed that one of their closets was snowing?

The answer, as Ford soon learned the hard way, was exactly two minutes and forty-seven seconds.)

And once or twice, it had saved him from near-certain doom.

(The indigo sands of F'thangor seemed endless.

How long had it been since he'd entered the desert? Eight sets of sunrises and sunsets? Nine? Ford was losing track. But he'd been out of any form of sustenance since the fifth sunset, and Ford had yet to see another soul the entire time. There were no landmarks in the desert, no trees or rocks to mark where he had been, only rolling sand dunes and the sun there to guide him.

His steps were slow now, slow and shaky, but he kept moving towards where his research indicated the nearest wormhole was located, though his skin was baking under the bright blue sun. He had to keep moving, had to make it through this, had to finish the quantum destabilizer and get rid of Bill Cipher once and for all, he couldn't let twenty-odd years of travel and work end _here_...

When he felt the first drop, he thought it was his imagination, or a hallucination brought on by thirst and the heat. But a second drop followed, and then a third, the drops growing closer together until he felt several at once, until the individual drops were no longer distinguishable.

Rain.

Ford had begun to think he would never feel rain again.

He lay down, not caring that the dark sands burned against his back, and swallowed gulp after gulp of cool, sweet water as the raindrops sank into his clothes and fell onto the ground around him, heat draining away with every drop that evaporated under the hot desert sun.)

But Ford eventually learned that there was more to this strange phenomenon than self-contained weather patterns.

The first item that showed evidence of human involvement was a piece of paper topped with the words "Murder Hut Suggestions", written in thick red ink with block lettering. The remainder of the text was written in scribbled cursive, made even harder to decipher since the ink comprising the rest of the text went from thin to nonexistent at points, but from what Ford could make out it was complaining about the inaccuracy and awkwardness of the name "Murder Hut". A valid complaint, Ford thought. With the possible exception of a haunted house, any business calling itself the "Murder Hut" was unlikely to attract much in the way of visitors.

Ford didn't know for certain how long it had been since he'd left his home dimension, but the date written on the paper of 06/18/82 seemed accurate enough. Four months, then. Four months he had spent hopping dimensions.

More such papers appeared on an irregular basis. The format changed over time, the labels printed instead of hand-written, the paper sturdy card stock rather than flimsy sheets clearly ripped out of a cheap notebook. The name "Murder Hut" was eventually replaced with the name "Mystery Shack", though the descriptions of the business in question- some sort of tacky tourist trap, it seemed- remained the same, as did many of the complaints alleged against it.

These suggestion cards might have been a mere novelty if the owner of this "Mystery Shack" wasn't addressed time and time again by the name of Stanford Pines, and if its address wasn't also Ford's own back on Earth.

Other items appeared as well as time went by:

A collection of love letters, from and to people whose first names were a mystery but whose surnames were familiar, which as a rule displayed an entirely unhealthy degree of obsession on the part of the apparently-spurned author. (Discarded post-haste.)

Money- American currency, specifically, always in the form of dollar bills rather than coins, mostly ones but occasionally fives, tens, and even a few twenties. (Kept, even though the currency was entirely useless in the vast majority of dimensions Ford frequented, even though he knew he'd never return home to spend it.)

Cryptic notes in too-precise handwriting, usually made out to Stanford or "Stan" Pines, though a few other names made their way into the mix. (Discarded.)

An opened letter that told of the death of one Filbrick Pines, referred to in the letter as the intended recipient's father. (Kept, for reasons Ford couldn't quite name.)

A locked box containing a box of golden teeth that, upon examination, seemed to force their wearer to tell the unembellished truth. (Ford kept them long enough to write a detailed note on their workings, then got rid of them; the truth was a dangerous thing for him these days.)

All these and more added up to one conclusion: In some strange other world, one Stanford Pines, living in the same house Ford himself had owned, was running a kitschy tourist trap rather than seriously studying the supernatural, and for reasons unknown Ford was receiving a handful of this other Stanford's personal effects.

But it wasn't until thirty years after the beginning of this odd phenomenon, when he had nearly destroyed Bill once and for all only to lose the opportunity at the last second, after stepping through a portal that had appeared at exactly the wrong time, that Ford realized that the bizarre dimension in which somebody by the name of Stanford Pines ran this "Mystery Shack" was in fact his own.


End file.
